Meacham’s book arrives at a time when much about the American political system seems broken. People are angry, ambivalent, anxious. But Meacham, by chronicling the nation’s struggles from revolutionary times to current day, makes the resonant argument that America has faced division before — and not only survived it but thrived ... Ultimately, Meacham believes the nation will move beyond Trump because, in the end, as they have shown on vital issues before, Americans embrace their better angels. This book stands as a testament to that choice — a reminder that the country has a history of returning to its core values of freedom and equality after enduring periods of distraction and turmoil ... Gripping and inspiring, The Soul of America is Jon Meacham’s declaration of his faith in America.
Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America, though it intends to uplift, nonetheless offers a necessary and sobering corrective. America’s past is 'more often tragic' than otherwise, the historian writes, 'full of broken hearts and broken promises, disappointed hopes and dreams delayed.' In times of fear, our leaders 'can be as often disappointing as they are heroic.' And if the soul of America is found in those attempts to expand the space for more people to live freely and pursue happiness, Meacham also points to a 'universal American inconsistency' — even as we uphold life and liberty for some, we hold back others deemed unworthy ... Such historical awareness can comfort, especially if you believe, as Meacham does, that every generation considers itself under siege and that, with the right leadership, Americans usually find a way forward rather than back.
...engaging and troubling ... Meacham widens the field of historical influence to include activists and intellectuals usually deemed outside the mainstream, above all W. E. B. Du Bois ... What’s troubling is the continuing history, amply if less fully documented in the book, of another abiding element of the American 'soul,' an authoritarian politics that is absolutist, oligarchic, anti-egalitarian, demagogic and almost always racist ... He is effective as ever at writing history for a broad readership. A journalist and presidential biographer who won a Pulitzer for his life of Andrew Jackson, he has seen how American politics works close up, as most academic historians have not, yet he has remained uncynical. He is an adroit and appealing storyteller ... Unfortunately ... there is virtually nothing about how the well-documented right-wing radicalization of the Republican Party paved the way for Donald Trump ... The book concludes with some worthy injunctions about getting active in politics, rejecting tribalism and respecting facts. But these fail to convey the profound depth of the crisis.
He is a man who has studied history in depth and who is able to recognize its echoes in the present day ... So does the book accomplish what it sets out to do? Yes, but not without a couple of major caveats ... this book is too ambitious for its own good. Because Meacham tries to weave together an overarching narrative that demonstrates the conflict between fear and hope, he is forced to skip around American history to the points where that conflict is most obvious. The result is a book that contains large chunks of fascinating analysis that are strung together by dizzyingly quick summarizations of the periods in between ... Despite this choppiness, the book is a captivating read. It is incredibly well researched, and the prose is always vivid and clear. The book also displays an impressive use of primary sources ... Readers may feel that Meacham has copped out by not directly addressing the fearmongering of President Trump, but I would argue that he has instead written a book that will be relevant long after this president’s term is up.
Meacham has become one of America’s most earnest and thoughtful biographers and historians ... He employs all of those skills in The Soul of America, a thoroughly researched and smoothly written roundup of some of the worst parts of American history and how they were gradually overcome ... Meacham provides advice to find our better angels — enter the arena, resist tribalism, respect facts and deploy reason, find a critical balance and keep history in mind. He's provided a great way to do it.
[F]or everyone, Meacham’s book – which traces the bumpy, long road of trying to live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence – serves as a sobering reminder that protest, divisive politics, and partisan rancor have been near-constants in the United States ... Of particular importance are Meacham’s attention to the rarity and difficulty of advancing past status quo complacency and inequality as well as simultaneously cautionary and encouraging examples of how leaders can’t improve the nation without both courage and the willingness of the masses to be led ... No matter who occupies the White House, this history – and these ideas, from presidents, demagogues, and activists alike – are worthy of our attention and reflection. Here, Meacham does us the service of providing a civil, and learned, starting point for such conversations.
Anyone who succeeds in condensing and deriving lessons from the guts of American history in fewer than 300 pages is demonstrating synthesizing powers bordering on the supernatural. Such is the achievement of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham ... With the arrival of a new baseball season, hope springs eternal that the home team will have a good record in the months ahead. With its release yesterday, The Soul of America is the author's swing-for-the-fences effort to inspire his country to execute a future game plan for restoring the nation to its pre-Trump mindset.
Eleanor Roosevelt wrote shortly before her death, 'One thing I believe profoundly: We make our own history.' But it is important that we know and understand what has happened in our collective past, and Meacham explains that past brilliantly ... The compelling narratives presented here show that, despite tremendous pressure to surrender to the forces of division, we can all work to achieve the founders’ vision. This insightful and reader-friendly book should be widely read and discussed.
By investigating the ways presidents have faced crises, Meacham, whose shining, cogent prose carries in its swift current mind-opening quotes from myriad sources, freshly defines the 'soul of America' ... This engrossing, edifying, many-voiced chronicle, subtly propelled by concern over the troubled Trump administration, calls on readers to defend democracy, decency, and the common good.
Clearly, Meacham hopes that the struggles of the past will inspire readers to contend for America’s soul by resisting the modern-day forces of fear and bigotry in the personae of Donald Trump and his supporters. Yet whether he is criticizing Trump’s post-Charlottesville comments or fretting over the influence of the largely irrelevant contemporary Klan, the author is not fully convincing in his argument that Trump poses a dire threat to our hard-won rights and liberty. Meacham ably depicts our nation’s struggles to live up to Lincoln’s words, but he oversells the notion that the fruits of past efforts are at risk in today’s America.
Meacham’s gracefully written historical vignettes don’t break new scholarly ground, but they do highlight patterns that resonate with today’s controversies over immigration and white nationalism ... Unfortunately, Meacham’s focus on presidents as moral exemplars and embodiments of America’s political soul feels more like mysticism—and anti-Trump panic—than cogent analysis
